Nationalising now would cost hundreds of billions.

Or, if you went down the banana republic route of forcibly nationalising without any compensation, and ignored the laws that currently prevent that, investment into the UK would plummet.

Investment in the UK already took a big hit from Brexit, we don’t need to make it worse.

The government is already the operator of last resort for the water companies. That means if the companies go bust any nobody steps in to buy them, the government takes over automatically.

I say the government should state they won’t be bailing out these water companies if they fail. That’s how it should be for any private investment.

When Thames and others go bust, the government steps in and takes over automatically as Operator Of Last Resort, with a tremendously lower cost to public finances.